The main legal point established in the judgment is that in economic and fiscal regulatory matters, courts should exercise restraint and not interfere with policy decisions unless they are clearly illegal or unconstitutional.

JUDGMENT

Subramonium Prasad, J. Aggrieved by the dismissal of the writ petition, being W.P.(C) No. 416/2021, vide Judgment dated 07.02.2022, passed by the learned Single Judge, the writ petitioners, i.e., Executive Pilots Association & Anr., have filed the instant appeal.

2. Shorn of details the facts leading to the instant LPA are as under:

i. It is stated that during the COVID-19 pandemic, since the aviation sector suffered a serious hit both commercially and financially, the Ministry of Civil Aviation took a conscious decision of reducing and then stopping the international and domestic flights for a considerable period of time.

ii. Since Air India was already a loss making public sector undertaking, a policy decision was taken to rationalize the allowances of its employees. This decision was taken in consultation with the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

iii. The cuts in allowances were made primarily in the case of the senior cadre employees of the organization, i.e., engineers, pilots and other general category officers. The decision to cut the salaries of the officers was taken by office orders dated 20.03.2020, 22.07.2020 and 18.12.2020. Vide the above said orders the allowances of pilots were first reduced by 40%. However, after reviewing the situation, the same was reduced to 35% from 40% subsequently. Similarly, the allowances for general category officers was initially reduced to 50% which was later revised to 30%. Similarly, in the case of cabin crew, the cut in their allowance was reduced to 20%.

iv. The order reducing the allowances of the pilots is the subject matter of challenge in W.P.(C) 416/2021, from which the instant appeal arises.

3. It is pertinent to mention at this juncture that the reduction has been challenged by the Appellants in the present LPA and the All India Aircraft Engineers Association has chosen not to challenge the impugned Judgment dated 07.02.2022.

4. Though before the learned Single Judge the issue of maintainability of the writ petition was taken up by Respondent No.1/Air India, but the learned Single Judge rejected the said contention and decided the writ petition on merits.

5. The learned Single Judge held that the rationalisation was only with regard to the allowances being paid to the employees and not in the salary component of the employees, i.e., the basic pay and other necessary allowances like DA, HRA, which are paid to all the employees and have not been reduced. The learned Single Judge held that the policy evolved by Air India was for uniform reduction in allowances which was proportional to the amount of allowances received by the employees. The higher the allowances greater was the reduction. The learned Single Judge took judicial notice of the fact that the aviation sector suffered gravely due to stoppage of the airlines, and, therefore, the decision to reduce the allowances was based on policy decision which required no interference. It is this judgment which is under challenge in the instant appeal.

6. Mr. Vivek Kohli, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Appellants, contends that Air India was the only airline which was flying under the Vande Bharat Mission and the pilots did a yeomen's job in transporting stranded passengers from across the world to our country. He states that the pilots put their lives at risk for this purpose. He states that the majority of the salary received by the pilots is by emoluments and the reduction in allowances hit the pilots the most. He states that other employees do not get as much allowances as the pilots and the pilots who have actually worked during the pandemic are being subject to a greater loss compared to the other employees who were not flying or were not involved in the operation of transporting people across the world to the country. He, therefore, states that the decision taken by Air India to reduce allowances discriminates the pilots against other employees since other employees do not get as many allowances as the pilots